Mollie Madden's book is a welcome addition to the military history of the Hundred Years War and to military history in general. One might at first wonder whether we needed another book on the Black Prince and his great raid (chevauchée) on Languedoc. The next most recent treatment, to my knowledge, was published in 2011, while H. J. Hewitt's book of 1958 retains considerable value, and David Green published a helpful biography in 2007. [1] Madden's book, however, focuses specifically on the logistical aspects of this fast-moving campaign, one which stretched from Bordeaux to Narbonne and left political and emotional imprints for generations.
Madden's over-arching argument is that this chevauchée was carefully planned and organized. Late medieval military historians will happily agree with this. The days when the commanders of the Hundred Years War were believed to be ignorant of strategy are thankfully passed. The great value in this book is rather that Madden demonstrates her argument by picking apart the day-to-day preparations and functions of the Prince's forces. Mostly drawing upon unpublished archival sources for the preparatory phases of the campaign, but also demonstrating a thorough mastery of the secondary literature, she highlights at every turn the administrative acumen that made the English army such a formidable opponent.
The book's first two chapters focus on the preparations for the expedition. In the first chapter, Madden first demonstrates that the decision to undertake a Gascon campaign must have been made by 10 March. This has implications for the diplomatic side of the war, for Edward III's ambassadors were then brokering the extension of a truce, set to expire on 5 April. It is not necessarily the case that England was negotiating in bad faith--if one wants peace, after all, one ought best to prepare for war--but it nicely illustrates the uncertainties and machinations at work in medieval international relations. Madden then moves on to the mechanics of finance, supply, and transport, showing how and whence the money, and materiel were located and sent to Plymouth or Southampton for departure in September, and estimating the total supplies needed for the eleven-day voyage to Bordeaux. Along the way, she provides much interesting information about the factual realities of production and trade. Her second chapter focuses on the recruitment of the soldiers and staff that accompanied the Black Prince. Madden calculates that 8,000 or so men constituted the total forces, about a quarter of which sailed from England with the Prince's fleet, and the rest of which were Gascons or mercenaries. As was generally the case for late medieval armies, all received salaries, including the Prince himself.
The next two chapters cover the expedition's path to Narbonne (chapter 3) and its return to Bordeaux (chapter 4), a journey which took two months. In these chapters, Madden follows Clifford Roger's account of thechevauchée quite closely, but considers logistical questions not developed in his book. [2] Most of the text is devoted to considering how the army was able to keep itself and its horses fed and watered as it travelled an average of 21 km a day to Narbonne and 24 km a day on the return trip. (Pack animals and some carts is the main answer.) In chapter 4, Madden devotes considerable discussion to Roger's argument that the English used grandes chevauchées to draw French forces into battle on favourable ground (pp. 153-59). Here, she marshals some new evidence to argue that the Prince's route back to Bordeaux suggests that on the return he was seeking battle, a battle that Armagnac was unwilling to give him.
In one sense, however, the 1355 chevauchée did lead the French to engage in battle. As Madden is right to point out, it caused considerable psychological damage to the French and had serious political consequences. (Because Languedoc was the richest part of the kingdom, it also caused considerable financial difficulties for the already overstretched French crown). Criticism of Armagnac's lack of response contributed to the French army's willingness to fight the English at Poitiers the next year, a battle to which they had been tempted by a chevauchée. At Poitiers, of course, the French were soundly defeated and King Jean II captured. Armagnac has often been blamed for letting Languedoc burn, but Poitiers suggests that his strategy was perhaps born more of wisdom and less of cowardice than many contemporaries and some historians have credited. Vegetian avoidance of battle was in fact a strategy that Charles V later used with considerable success.
The book is rounded out by a chapter on the months after the chevauchée, during which some of the Prince's commanders conducted lesser raids in French-held territory and the army was resupplied. Here, again, Madden shows administrative efficiency of the English operation. Details about its thirst for arrows are particularly interesting, especially thinking ahead to Poitiers. The conclusion reiterates Madden's arguments that the campaign was well organized and achieved its goals of punishing Armagnac and shoring up Gascon support for the English. Four appendices follow: the English fleet's ships; the names of the Prince's own forces; a calendar of the places on the chevauchée; and tables of the Prince's financial accounts.
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Notes:
1. Peter Hoskins, In the Steps of the Black Prince: The Road to Poitiers, 1355-1356 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2011); H. J. Hewitt, The Black Prince's expedition of 1355-1357 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1958); David Green, Edward the Black Prince: Power in Medieval Europe (Harlow: Pearson, 2007).
2. Clifford J. Rogers, War Cruel and Sharp: English Strategy under Edward III, 1327-1360 (Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2000), 304-332.